1. CHAPTER ONE #2
Dorothea chuckled. “But damn if I wouldn’t rather have this than dinner duty . . . suckers.” Effie laughed out loud but knew firsthand the toils of dinner duty for such a large bunch. Bea and Grams were the only two not on the dinner rotation. Effie checked her watch.
“You’re dismissed,” Grams said, nudging Effie. “Go talk to her before you have to leave too.”
Effie kissed Dorothea on the cheek, then Aunt Bea, before chasing Hope upstairs.
Effie hoped she’d know the right thing to say, the words that would be sincere, helpful, and honest. Words that would taste right coming from her and sweeten the truth for Hope.
Effie was not good at being anything more than a willing ear. Her advice, while well-intentioned, came from an inexperienced place. She couldn’t even fathom how Hope had gotten here.
They had spent countless hours discussing that they wanted to live and travel and succeed in their own little ways before becoming mothers. Not that their family wasn’t successful after motherhood, but they wanted something different.
They wanted love and devotion, partnership and great romance before they considered how life would evolve from there.
That shared vision when Hope returned from college resulted in a mutual plan for celibacy.
A vow to be sure they found a good man before being too vulnerable.
Effie always believed they’d feared the Thatcher curse with the same gusto, but maybe that didn’t mean to Hope what it meant to Effie.
To Effie, it meant keeping her twenty-three-year-old heart—and legs—closed until she found the love of her life. Effie had to be sure. She had to know it would be forever. She thought she and Hope were on the same page about that . . . Apparently not.
Effie climbed the stairs to find Tibby leaning against Hope’s door. She looked defeated. Effie dropped onto the floor beside her.
“I’m showing houses to new buyers in twenty minutes.” Tibby sighed. “I can’t get a hold of them to reschedule, I just—I don’t want her to think I’m mad or disappointed, I just. I didn’t know what to say.”
Effie grabbed her aunt’s hand, squeezing it tight. Even if Effie didn’t always know what to say either, she was excellent at the handholding. Everyone knew it. They leaned on her silent support anytime they knew words would undo them.
“I can let her know,” Effie offered. Tibby patted the back of Effie’s hand and stood. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
“How do I look?” Tibby asked. Effie was certain she just wanted to know if she could be seen in public and her eyes hadn’t reddened too much, but Effie always admired Tibby’s effortless beauty, how she embraced her laugh lines and her years.
“Stunning. As always.” Effie smiled.
Tibby gave a grateful nod and hurried off to her appointment as Pamela emerged from her room down the hall in a set of NICU pink scrubs. “You never say those things to me,” Pamela huffed as she pulled her shoulder-length, bottle-blonde hair into a ponytail.
“Would you believe me if I did?” Effie asked.
“Probably not,” Pamela admitted. “Oh! Will you see if you got more of that baby-pink merino wool in at the store? I want to knit more hats.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, love. Have a good day.” Pamela paused, looking at Hope’s door.
“Let her know we’re just giving her space.
It’s a good thing. An exciting thing. Another Thatcher baby!
” Pamela smiled. It was such a rarity for Pamela’s smiles to be real that Effie savored each one.
Pamela ran off to spend her day in the NICU, where Effie imagined she must exhaust her daily allotment of compassion and selflessness.
Rolling her head against Hope’s door, Effie lifted her arm and lightly rapped her knuckles against the worn walnut.
She heard the doorknob turn in time to avoid falling back as the door opened. Effie jumped up and scooted inside.
Hope plopped onto the bed made up with a violet duvet and fluffy, fringed pillows while Effie lowered herself onto the window seat bench.
Both Effie and Hope had rooms on the front of the house that faced the brick-lined sidewalks of Austin Street.
Estates across the paved road and on either side were built in the same New England Colonial style, but only the Thatcher’s had been painted a daffodil yellow— to stand out , as Grams always said.
Effie pulled her gaze from the apple blossoms that were budding on the neighbor’s tree to assess Hope in her cave of emotions.
“She didn’t know what to say,” Effie offered.
“I heard. This old house may be built like a fortress with those heavy doors, but they’re not soundproof.”
Effie smiled. “Do you want to talk about it?” Hope shifted in her seat.
Effie tried to imagine what she must be feeling, but she never was good at future casting.
Dreams and plans and imaginings about her life were unknown to Effie.
She knew she wanted to find a love like Grams and Gramps, but she knew little else.
Especially what it felt like for a full person to be growing inside of you.
“Louisa better bring me a large bouquet of flowers tonight,” Hope said as she typed furiously on the laptop that rested on her crossed legs.
“Is that really why you blurted it out?”
“What does the name Evangeline taste like?”
Effie sighed. “Honestly? Sour grapes.”
Hope grimaced. She often asked Effie what flavor a name gave.
She liked knowing if the characters she wrote in her now bestselling books tasted good or not.
It was always an odd question when asked out in public, but Effie didn’t mind.
She just couldn’t explain to everyone they met that she had lexical gustatory synesthesia and therefore could taste words.
Names especially gave her very strong flavors.
“Hopefully, Evangeline isn’t set in stone?” Sour grapes and a mineral earthiness splashed over Effie’s tongue. Her lips puckered of their own free will.
Hope huffed and closed her laptop. “Nope. Nothing is. I have the third book releasing soon, but I’m waiting on notes from my editor, so I thought I’d get started on my new series, and I . . . well, it’s not working at all.”
That made sense. Life-changing news had a way of wreaking havoc with routines. “Maybe you’re a little distracted?” Effie suggested. She rose from her perch by the window and joined Hope on the bed.
“I wish you had told me,” Effie whispered. “How far along are you?”
Hope closed her eyes as tears threatened to fall. “Almost five months. ”
“Five months!” Effie exclaimed, nearly falling off the bed. “How?”
“Well . . . I—I don’t know. Most people don’t even know until five or six weeks, and that’s when they’re waiting for it.
I suppose I didn’t realize I missed my period until I was a month late?
So I was already ten weeks along when I went to the doctor.
Then it seemed like it made sense to wait the whole first trimester before saying anything, in case something happened.
And ever since I’ve been worried about telling everyone. ”
Effie’s stomach churned. It wasn't just the family she worried over. “How did you not realize you skipped your period?”
“You know my cycle can’t be trusted, plus I was locked in here careening toward drafting deadlines on book three! The release is forthcoming, and it has to be immaculate or the publisher won’t want to pick up my next series . . . and then that pitch has to be perfect.”
Effie saw her spiraling and placed a comforting hand on Hope’s knee.
It was as much for Hope as it was for Effie to avoid an onslaught of mashed-up flavors.
Careening, for example, had the unfortunate association with carrion .
Not that Effie had ever tasted dead flesh, but her brain was more than happy to try to fill in that blank.
“Okay . . .” Effie understood to an extent, but she’d never lost herself to a project or a person or anything that way. Hope tended to go all in though. Effie envied her that.
“And you haven’t told him, why?”
“We’ve only been together for a year, but he’s been busy lately, and he had this work training thing, and then he went on a trip with his moms, and I just . . . I haven’t had a chance.”
“You haven’t created a chance,” Effie corrected at the risk of getting her head bitten off. And they’d been together a year? Effie only first heard about him six months ago. Maybe the rift between them was already bigger than she knew.
“You’re right,” Hope confessed. “I’m scared. I know he’s nothing like our dads or your sisters’ exes, but—”
“You don’t want him to prove them right.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you . . . Do you love him?”
Hope giggled. She actually giggled, and Effie knew before she said, “I do. So much. I feel, well . . . I am a bestselling author and have met thousands of my readers and bared my soul in my books and never have I felt as seen as when he looks at me. I don’t know if he loves me as completely as I love him,” Hope confessed.
It was impossible not to love Hope. Behind the witchy weirdness, she was sweet, compassionate, and so attentive. It made her an excellent observer of the human condition, even if she was rarely as aware of herself as she was of her fictional characters.
“I suppose you won’t know if you don’t give him a chance,” Effie said.
“And you won’t if you don’t give anyone a chance,” Hope deflected, though she happened to be right. But they weren’t talking about Effie.
Effie hoped this man, the one that she had heard about in hushed tones late at night, whose name tasted like butter and made Hope’s eyes glow as if he himself had hung the moon, was worthy of her dear cousin.
Because if he wasn’t, Effie would be sure that Brayden What’s-His-Name regretted ever meeting her for the rest of his life.
Effie emerged from her vengeful musings when Hope handed her a photograph. No, not a photograph, a sonogram. It instantly became real. “You’re going to be someone’s mom,” Effie said, marveling .
“I know,” Hope replied, the apprehension heavy in her voice.
“I’m so happy for you.” Effie wrapped Hope in a hug. She’d never tell her that happy didn’t taste quite the same. The word was usually smothered in floral-noted honey. In that moment, happy honey mixed with the metallic tang of loss.
Nothing would ever be the same again.